Page:The empire and the century.djvu/683

 and in the value of agricultural produce and in irrigation, has justly led to an increase in the total land revenue. But the tendency has been to reduce rates. There has been, as the Government of India reported in 1902, 'a progressive reduction of assessments extending throughout the last century and becoming more instead of less active during its second half' (see 'India,' by Sir John Strachey, p. 125, third edition). What was the state of things before our rule under the potentates whose example is held up to us? The revenue was, as a rule, farmed, and there was no limit to the exactions of the farmers but the ability of the peasants to pay. They were often stripped of everything and left without food. This is what Bernier says in his letter to Colbert written about 1650: 'The country is ruined by the necessity of defraying the enormous charges required to maintain the splendour of a numerous Court and to pay a large army maintained for the purpose of keeping the people in subjection. No adequate idea can be conveyed of the sufferings of that people. The cudgel and the whip compel them to incessant labour for the benefit of others, and, driven to despair by every kind of cruel treatment, their revolt or their flight is only prevented by the presence of a military force.' This is the description of a foreign eye-witness who had no motive to exaggerate. When we began to establish our rule a century later things were not much better.

Fifthly, I would point to what has been done for the material advancement of the country. We found it without roads—much in the state of China at the present time; nothing but ordinary cart-tracks, difficult and heavy at all times, in the rains impassable. There are now good roads (although still too few) in every district. There are 30,000 miles of railway, well and economically made, and paying, on the whole, more than 5 per cent. on their capital cost. They have been constructed partly from revenue, but mainly from funds borrowed by, or on the guarantee of, the Government of India. It cannot be pretended that these undertakings